The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom


Yo Vote!

05/01/2012

While Hispanics make up a large percentage of the population, their electoral power is limited. In the ’10 mid-term elections Hispanics were just 6.9% of the electorate as just 42.7% of the Hispanic population is eligible to vote (78% for…

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Weak GDP

04/30/2012

Q1 ‘12 GDP came in at a dismal 2.2%, not nearly fast enough to dent unemployment. The biggest problem, after adjusting for inflation, wages fell last year. The only reason consumer spending is up is because savings rates keep declining;…

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Prom Bomb

04/27/2012

The Friday File: Families with teens are expected to spend about $1,078 on prom festivities based on several surveys. In the Northeast, the average will be $2,000, in the South, $1,047 and in the West and Midwest, $744 and $696…

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Gender Gap

04/27/2012

During the first year of the Great Recession (1/08 – 1/09), men lost almost 3.3 million jobs while women lost nearly 1.2 million. Since then, women have lost another 680K jobs and men just 60K. This is because many men…

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Buying Votes

04/25/2012

So far, front runner Mitt Romney has spent $124 million in the primaries and has received 4.1 million votes, for a cost of $30/vote. Gingrich spent $39 million or almost $18/vote. Santorum was the most efficient spending just $27 million,…

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Cell Saturation

04/24/2012

The previously fast-growing US cell phone market is now fully saturated. Wireless carriers collectively lost 20,000 customers with long-term contracts (the most profitable segment) in Q1 ’12; the first decline ever. While this is partly due to holdouts that bought…

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McDonald’s Vs Subway

04/23/2012

Depending on how you count, Subway is far and away the largest chain in the US with about 23K stores. McDonalds is a distant second at about 14K, Starbucks is third with 11K, Burger King follows at about 7K then…

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A Really Costly Vacation!

04/20/2012

The Friday File: Believe it or not, the former Comptroller of Dixon, IL is accused of embezzling $30 million (annual budget just $9 million) since ’06 to finance a lavish (you think?) lifestyle. Making things worse, the City spent about…

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Where’s My Credit?

04/19/2012

This recovery is anemic because total (household and government) debt is high and falling! Consumer credit actually declined by 2.5% in ’11 and total debt fell from 203% of GDP to 202% in ‘11; about $160,000/working age person. At the…

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Tackling Taxes

04/18/2012

With tax reform in the air here are three principles economists want reform based on. 1) Broaden the base and lower rates. Lower marginal rates distort behavior less. 2) Tax consumption not income. Taxing income discourages savings, investment and work.…

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